


Before & After

by edriss



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:20:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edriss/pseuds/edriss
Summary: written for a comment_fic prompt "Kara/Sam, all this will happen again"
Relationships: Sam Anders/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Kudos: 1
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2010





	Before & After

On Earth, Sam is in love with a light girl who laughs easily when he plays for her. But her eyes are dark behind her easy smile and tough skin. She pouts when he works late at the lab and punches him hard in the arm when he finally gets home. He's in love and talks endlessly about her to anyone who will listen and even those that stopped long ago. She fills up his whole world, even when she smashes his guitar to splinters against their apartment's wall, even when she breaks liquor bottles leaving glass strewn across their living room floor, even when she leaves a hard, red hand print on his face, even when she makes the worse mistakes. She is Sam's world.

And then their world explodes into a million bright lights and Sam wakes up somewhere else in a similar body and his first feelings are relief and pride, followed quickly by the bitter memory that everyone else got to keep their loved ones while he left his behind, her body now a thousand particles of dust in Earth's atmosphere.

***

He survives another nuclear holocaust, this time by accident while training on Caprica. This Sam has been in love only once but that was long ago and now he keeps himself closed off from the rest of the survivors if he can help it. But then ... then there's Kara. And he knows her for only a few days but it feels like they've known each other forever. They fit so easily together and her laugh echoes around his makeshift bedroom, reminding him of something he can't place.

She gives him her heart in the form of a dog tag. He lets her go and feels like he has done it a million times before.

***

She returns to him when he's half-dead -- saves him and this, too, seems familiar though Sam is certain that he saved her on their last encounter on Caprica.

***

She kisses him too much -- sloppy, wet kisses that reek of ambrosia and cigars. She misses his mouth and decides to lick at his pulse instead. She laughs and laughs as he pulls at her clothes and it's just so easy the way they fall into bed. He pushes her sweaty, blond hair from her face and there's something heavy behind her eyes -- but isn't it like that for everyone now?

***

Sam's memories are flitting quickly through his mind -- memories he can't possibly have but here they are nonetheless. And he tries to spit them out as quickly as they come to him, in case he forgets them and in most cases he does. He begs Kara to let him keep talking and he knows he knows he knows this is it. This is everything pouring out of him and when he finally has to stop he won't be himself anymore. He's bleeding on the inside and his mind is trickling out his ears. Kara, please, I have to do this but he stumbles, chokes and she sends him to surgery.

After that, nothing is the same.

***

He wakes, surprisingly whole, in a bright place he doesn't recognize.

For Sam, an eternity passes as all his memories come back to him. He understands everything now and it is his greatest reward.

He spends an eternity alone but in one moment he blinks and when he opens his eyes, Kara stands shining in front of him, hair tucked behind her ears and her face breaks into a wide smile.

"I guess this is it, Sam," she says, almost laughing.

"It somehow seems so familiar," he responds, now knowing it is true.

"I know what you mean."


End file.
